The gradual transformation? The incremental dynamics of macroprudential regulation

This article focuses on the transformatory potential of macroprudential ideas following the financial crash of 2008, examining how they are being mediated by existing institutional contexts and how and why the task of building a new body of technical macroprudential knowledge is proceeding slowly. It is argued that the movement toward a form of macroprudential regulation has a distinctly incremental dynamic that means any macroprudential transformation will be a gradual process that is likely to span a decade or more. Using Peter Hall's framework of three orders of policy change across substantive and temporal dimensions, the article argues that the macroprudential ideational shift can be compared to third order change. In this sense, it was intellectually radical and took place rapidly in a period of around six months. However, intellectual radicalism does not automatically translate into a radical change in regulatory practice, because of a variety of countervailing political, institutional, and informational variables. In this respect, the task of developing first and second order macroprudential policy is proving to be a much more politically contested process. Furthermore, macroprudential policy is being developed by cautious technocrats who rely on the gradual accumulation of data and evidence to justify policy. The result is a distinctly incremental dynamic to macroprudential policy development that displays many of the features of a process that historical institutionalists refer to as “layering.”     

The death of conservative Ireland? The 2018 abortion referendum

The outcomes of two recent Irish referendums - on marriage equality in 2015 and abortion in 2018 - have placed contemporary Irish voters in sharp contrast with their long-standing conservative Catholic reputation. These referendums also stand out internationally because of an associated deliberative innovation. This paper aims to explain the watershed abortion vote drawing on theories of generational change, issue-voting, cue-taking and deliberative democracy, using data from an exit poll at the 2018 abortion referendum. We show that cleavage and age effects are key to understanding the referendum outcome. These results offer insight into how societal processes such as rapid secularisation, generational replacement and democratic innovations shape politics. Moreover, voters who were aware of the deliberative innovation were more likely to support the liberal referendum option. To increase willingness to deviate from the status quo, engaging citizens actively in the debate is a fruitful approach.     

The symbiotic tensions of the regulatory–carceral state: The case of cannabis legalization

Recent scholarship has emphasized the need to develop a polymorphic conceptualization of the regulatory state. This article contributes to this theory-building project by outlining a research agenda for exploring the symbiotic interactions and tensions between the regulatory and carceral morphs of the state. Using the case study of cannabis legalization reforms in the United States, we argue that the legitimation deficits of the carceral state stimulate the proliferation of new regulatory frameworks for governing social problems that were traditionally handled by the criminal justice system. We demonstrate how the polymorphic approach illuminates the ways in which the regulatory and carceral morphs of the state compete for influence over shared policy domains, but also complement and reinforce one another. Thus, rather than precipitating the demise of the carceral state, cannabis legalization reforms sustain a bifurcated governance structure perpetuating long-standing patterns of using drug law as a means for racialized social control.     

The Electoral Consequences of Skin Color: The “Hidden” Side of Race in Politics

Despite the significant role that skin color plays in material well-being and social perceptions, scholars know little if anything about whether skin color and afrocentric features influence political cognition and behavior and specifically, if intraracial variation in addition to categorical difference affects the choices of voters. Do more phenotypically black minorities suffer an electoral penalty as they do in most aspects of life? This study investigates the impact of color and phenotypically black facial features on candidate evaluation, using a nationally representative survey experiment of over 2000 whites. Subjects were randomly assigned to campaign literature of two opposing candidates, in which the race, skin color and features, and issue stance of candidates was varied. I find that afrocentric phenotype is an important, albeit hidden, form of bias in racial attitudes and that the importance of race on candidate evaluation depends largely on skin color and afrocentric features. However, like other racial cues, color and black phenotype don’t influence voters’ evaluations uniformly but vary in magnitude and direction across the gender and partisan makeup of the electorate in theoretically explicable ways. Ultimately, I argue, scholars of race politics, implicit racial bias, and minority candidates are missing an important aspect of racial bias.     

The external costs of foreclosure: The impact of single‐family mortgage foreclosures on property values

Abstract

To measure the impact of foreclosures on nearby property values, we use a database that combines data on 1997 and 1998 foreclosures with data on neighborhood characteristics and more than 9,600 single‐family property transactions in Chicago in 1999. After controlling for some 40 characteristics of properties and their respective neighborhoods, we find that foreclosures of conventional single‐family (one‐ to four‐unit) loans have a significant impact on nearby property values. Our most conservative estimates indicate that each conventional foreclosure within an eighth of a mile of a single‐family home results in a decline of 0.9 percent in value.

Cumulatively, this means that, for the entire city of Chicago, the 3,750 foreclosures that occurred in 1997 and 1998 are estimated to have reduced nearby property values by more than $598 million, for an average of $159,000 per foreclosure. This does not include effects on the value of condominiums, multifamily rental properties, and commercial buildings.     

The “Miracle” Revisited: The De-radicalization of Korean Political Culture

The radicalism that spawned the 1987 democratic revolution was a product of civic unity across class lines. Lacking the raw power of President Park, Presidents Chun and Roh had no choice but to seek a degree of democratic legitimacy. That same weakness was reflected in their relative surrender of Blue House power over Korean chaebols. Thus there were two winners in the political transformation of those years: minjung power (the Korean equivalent of Philippine “people power”) and corporatism, now largely freed from Parkian restraints. With the subsequent dissolution of minjung unity, however, corporatism emerged as the real winner of the “democratic” revolution. That victory was consummated by the neoliberal reforms mandated by the IMF in return for a mammoth bailout package after the Crash. There was little effective resistance to this IMFism, for the reform spirit of 1987 had perished long before.     

The demise of party identification theory?

The theory of party identification has lost favour in recent years, while theories of issue voting have come into prominence. Analysis of the 1983 British General Election Study and of the 1983–1987 Panel Study suggests that the decline in the explanatory power of party identification theory may be relatively small. An assessment of the changing explanatory power of issue-voting theory is more difficult because of changes in question-wording and coverage of issues in the election studies. There are also doubts about the reliability of the conventional measures of attitudes towards specific political issues although the evidence of the 1983–1987 Panel Study indicates that respondents' general political principles are as stable over time as their party identifications.